Shooting Along Fredericksburg’s Stone Wall

photography by Jackson Mackowski

Earlier this week, ECW co-founder Chris Mackowski took his son Jackson out for some photography lessons. The two spend some time along the Sunken Road and Stone Wall on the Fredericksburg battlefield. “There’s plenty of stuff there to shoot,” Chris explained.

Jackson was kind enough to share his photos with us.

The memorial for Sgt. Richard Kirkland in the foreground and, in the background, atop Marye’s Heights, the stately mansion Brompton, a wartime structure now occupied by the president of the University of Mary Washington.

Kirkland earned the nickname “The Angel of Marye’s Heights” because he jumped the stone wall and took water to wounded Union soldiers trapped on the killing grounds in front of the Confederate position.

Martha Stevens (a.k.a. Stephens, a.k.a. Innis) occupied a house along the Sunken Road. As legend has it, she stayed in the house during that battle and supplied water for the troops from her well (the same well Kirkland purportedly used to fill his canteens during his mission of mercy).

The foundation stones of Stevens’s house mark the location of her home. Her well stands between her home and the Stone Wall.

Stevens is buried in a family cemetery next to her old homestead, her grave marked by a stone urn. The Innis House, another of her properties, stands nearby.